


With a touch of a new heart

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: I promise, IT'S BEAUTIFUL, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, University AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3675111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis probably has the worst next door neighbour ever. Or, quite possibly, the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a touch of a new heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amarvel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarvel/gifts).



> 1\. thank you to LoudestLouis for three great prompts. It was a tough choice. 
> 
> 2\. thank you also to my two best friends at uni, whose first kiss stories I have quietly appropriated for this fic. 
> 
> 3\. title from 'This is the start' by A Fine Frenzy.

Louis realises that, on the fifth day of classes of his first year at university, he actually doesn’t know who his neighbour is. He’s going to find out though, because he can hear the percussion line of whatever music his neighbour is listening to through his wall and over the Lord of the Rings soundtrack he had so carefully selected to write this particular essay.

He’s full of piss and vinegar as he stomps out the door, gives a quick wave to Zayn from across the hall, and knocks on his next-door neighbour’s door. This guy’s going to get it.

(Ah, who is Louis kidding, he’s a skinny a history and English student with coke bottle glasses who stammers when his tutor asks questions about his essays. No one is getting anything from him.)

He knocks on the door, no reaction. He purses his lips, and knocks louder, more determined, and then hears the music pause, and someone walk towards the door. The lock clicks, and the door opens, and Louis is – not terribly surprised by the person that opens the door.

He’s tall, long hair, almost down to his shoulders, with a button-down shirt made of – leather, possibly? Dark jeans, tattoos down his arms, piercings in his nose and ears. Oh, brother.

“Hey,” he says, looking down at Louis, because yeah, he’s that tall. Oh god.

“Hi,” Louis says, sharply. “I live next door, and your music is too loud.”

“Ah,” he says, smiling, “I’ll turn it down then. Sorry about that.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, tone still caustic.

“I’m Harry, by the way,” the guy says, and Louis has no interest, absolutely none whatsoever, in introducing himself to him, but, well, he’s also not rude.

“Louis,” he replies, shaking Harry’s hand. “Keep it down over here.”

Harry salutes him, and Louis detects a little bit of sarcasm.

As he turns to go back to his room, Zayn beckons him into his room.

“Yes?” He says, leaning against the doorway.

“He’s a nice guy,” Zayn says.

“Whatever,” Louis replies, crossing his arms. “And you’re not supposed to be smoking in here, you know that, right?”

“Only out the window,” Zayn says. “I value my place in this college residence.”

“It reeks of tobacco in here.”

Zayn laughs. “You need to loosen up a little bit, Tommo.”

Zayn – well, he guesses that Zayn just makes up nicknames for people, because never once has he called himself Tommo or told Zayn that he could call him Tommo. 

“I need to finish my essay,” Louis says. “Have a good night.”

Zayn nods, and Louis goes back to his room.

* * *

His English tutor is kind of strange – strange in that instead of having tutorials in a cramped office around the quad, but in the ‘drawing room’ of his house, which Louis had spent half an hour wandering through the winding streets of East Oxford before finding where he was meant to go. (‘Drawing room’ was the term his tutor used, the pretentious bat. Louis had never lived anywhere with a drawing room, nor heard the term before outside of the Regency novels he had read for his interview).

“Well then, Mr. Tomlinson,” his tutor says, standing up suddenly, as he would to signal the end of their tutorials, “I’ll see you next week.”

Louis nods. “Thank you, Dr. Cowell,” Louis says, as his hands him a copy of _Mrs. Dalloway_ for his reading. Louis has never been a particular fan of Virginia Woolf, but, alas, this is not something over which he has a great deal of control.

“Let the next boy in,” Dr. Cowell shouts after him as he laces up his trainers. He cracks open the door, and who else does he see but – well, the asshole next door.

No, Louis, you have to be nice. That’s Harry.

“Hey,” he says, completely ignoring the slight jump in his heart rate, “Dr. Cowell is ready for you in there.”

Harry flashes him a smile and a thumbs-up. “Thanks!”

Louis nods. He might be smiling. He needs to stop smiling.

Louis steps out the door and Harry slips past him, stepping inside and giving him a little wave. He pulls the door shut behind him, and Louis stands on the front step for a few moments, lost in thought, and then snaps himself out of his reverie and makes his way down the road, back to his dorm. 

* * *

 

“You,” Zayn says, waving an unlit cigarette at him and leaning back in his desk chair, “are being such a fucking idiot about this whole thing.”

“Zayn, I’m at Oxford, what could I possibly be an idiot about?” Louis says. Zayn’s bed is much more comfortable than his own, and his room has a homely atmosphere that Louis can never quite reproduce in his own room. “We are the future of British intellectual life. We might have had dinner with a future Prime Minister tonight, for all we know.”

Zayn laughs, shakes his head, and looks at Louis with some desperation. “Okay, Tommo, you are knowledgeable about modern British literature, remarkably fluent in Latin, and sound in your historical perception about – well, everything. But you are not people smart.”

“Why is that even relevant, Zayn –“

“Because I think you have a crush,” Zayn says.

“You are out of your mind,” Louis says. “I bought noise cancelling headphones and _I can still hear his goddamn screamer music_ when I’m studying. I definitely have the good sense not to fall for someone so annoying.”

He totally does not have a crush. Zayn is lovely, and very friendly, and significantly more socially astute than Louis is, and Louis likes him a good bit, but in this instance he is totally wrong. Totally.

“Okay,” Zayn says, leaning forward, looking at Louis earnestly, “you came back from your English tutorial and promptly spent ten minutes breaking down a thirty second interaction you had with Harry.”

Louis nods. Fair, Zayn was right about that one.

“And then, you spent dinner fawning at him from across the dining room, where he was sitting alone, and yet despite all the creepy staring, you didn’t bother to actually invite him over to sit with us.”

“Hang on, I totally didn’t do –“

“I can text Niall,” Zayn says, grabbing his phone. “He’ll say the same thing.”

“Okay, okay,” Louis says, suddenly made quite nervous by the conversation, “it is entirely possible that I have just a little bit of a crush.” Admittedly, this is not a feeling with which he’s well acquainted, given that his own sexuality was something of a mystery to him growing up, and then something he actively repressed in pursuit of good exam results.

“Just a bit?”

“Just a bit.” Louis nods, pressing his lips together.

“Okay,” Zayn says. He nods, sighs, and Louis is truly in terra incognita now.

“So, what do I do?” Louis asks.

“Well,” Zayn says, looking far more world-weary than he should, given that he’s literally eighteen and has nothing to feel weary about, “I guess that’s up to you, my friend.” 

* * *

What Louis does is – well, he doesn’t do anything. His stepfather had always said that he wasn’t a man of action, and that, in this particular situation, is quite true. He still moons at Harry from across the dining room, and politely greets him when he goes to and from tutorials. On study breaks, he thinks of eloquent speeches, tries to ask him to coffee in the most eloquent way possible, but every time he tries to work up the courage, considers maybe actually doing something, the words die in his throat and what little nerve he had completely falters. He’s even nervous to the point where he tolerates Harry’s music from the other side of the wall, and finds a strange sort of rhythm and tone in the loud percussion lines.

It goes on like this for a month, and Louis is pretty sure that he’s had enough of being in love by the end of it, and considers entering the monastic life.

He tells Zayn this, only to be hit in the face by a stray bundle of socks as Zayn folds his laundry.

“You can do this,” Zayn says. “I swear to god, Tommo, if it gets to exam time and you haven’t said a word to him yet, I’m going to do something drastic. (Louis shudders to think about what that might be.)

It ends up being that Harry makes the next move, which is probably a good thing. Louis hears a knock at his door one night, as he’s trying to evaluate what impact the discourse of empire might have had on ordinary’s Briton’s reactions to decolonization, and he opens it without thinking, and bam, there, right in front of him, is Harry.

“Oh,” Louis says, suddenly conscious of his ratty jogging trousers and old school PE shirt. “Hey.”

Harry gives him a quick wave, and holds up his copy of _Orlando._ “Zayn says that you’re something of a whiz with Ms. Woolf, and I’m not getting this at all.”

“Uh,” Louis says, words failing him at the most inopportune moment, “I guess I’m alright. I’m definitely like that more than the other Woolf we’ve had to do this semester, but I’m kind of working on a history essay right now. Maybe later?”

“Yeah,” Harry nods, a gleam in his green eyes, “we could do coffee tomorrow?”

Louis’ nervous mind comes up with plenty of excuses to not take Harry up on his offer – he’s busy, he’s got another tutorial, a date with the stacks in the Bod – but Louis remembers Zayn’s threat, and figures that he’d rather be the one with the ultimate control over how things go down.

“Okay,” Louis says, a little breathless, “do you want to meet at that place by the Lamb and Flag? Two o’clock?”

Harry nods. “It’s a date. Have a good night, Tommo.”

Louis smiles, blushes a little (oh no). “Only Zayn calls me that.”

“Maybe I can too.”

“Okay,” Louis says. Yeah, that’d be super cool. “Cool.”

Harry smiles again. There’s an awkward moment then, a beat of silence between them. Louis looks down at his feet, shuffles a little, and then gives Harry a stiff wave. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Good luck with your essay.” Louis closes the door, and then collapses in his chair. He takes stock of his heart pounding in his chest, hands shaking, and then his phone buzzes with a text from Zayn.

_See? Not that hard._

Louis rolls his eyes, and can’t think about anything history-related for the rest of the night. 

* * *

 

Harry is a punctual person, which Louis should know, given that he’s never missed a tutorial, but Louis is still a little surprised when Harry already has a table upstairs and a pot of tea when Louis gets to the café ten minutes early. He’s even managed to get one of the tables with the comfy chairs, and now Louis is wondering if he’d talked to Zayn, maybe figured out that the one by the window is, in fact, Louis’ favourite.

He also notices that Harry’s copy of Orlando is conspicuously absent.

“Good afternoon,” Louis says, dropping his backpack beside his seat and settling into one of the armchairs.

“Good afternoon to you too,” Harry says, filling up one of the mugs with tea.

“So,” Louis says, nodding his thanks as Harry passes the mug across the table, “what’s don’t you understand about Orlando?”

Harry takes a deep breath. “Well, that might have been a bit of a white lie.”

“For what?”

“To get you to come have tea and cake with me,” Harry says. “I do genuinely have a question, though. My book’s just back in my room.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “I probably would have just come if you’d asked.”

“Yeah, but I’m too much of a dolt to actually ask you, and if what Zayn tells me is correct, so are you,” Harry says.

“Fair enough,” Louis says, and keeps trying to convince himself that this is a nice, casual coffee date between friends. Sure. Yes. He has nothing to worry about whatsoever. “I might ask for some carrot cake as recompense for your deception, though.”

“I think I can arrange that,” Harry says with a smile.

* * *

By the time they get back to the college, Louis has discovered that Harry’s favourite band is Blondie (‘it’s not really punk, but I think it’s great,’ he’d told Louis, probably not knowing that Louis wouldn’t know what was or wasn’t punk to begin with) but that he also has a soft spot for Doctor Who, and hasn’t seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, which Louis regards as a great tragedy.

“This is going to be really embarrassing,” Louis says, sitting on the floor of Harry’s room (the one clear spot, he notices, because scattered clothes and papers seem to fill up every other corner), “but like, I think I realized that I was into guys because of Aragorn.” To be fair, they had spoken perfunctorily about Orlando, spending ten minutes on the essay question which Louis didn’t quite get either, but talking about which movie characters had prompted sexual awakenings was, to be fair, much more entertaining.

Harry laughs. “I pegged you more for an Orlando Bloom kind of person, to be honest.”

“Well, now you have to tell me something embarrassing about you,” Louis says earnestly. “Come on, Harry, _quid pro quo._ ”

“Well, embarrassing thing number one,” Harry says, “I never did Latin, so I don’t really understand what you just said to me. But I guess it’s the fact that I used to have a massive crush on Theo from Atlantis – that’s more what you’re looking for.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, “he was pretty cute. Doesn’t hold a candle to Aragorn though.”

“Um, well,” Harry says, “I still haven’t actually seen Lord of the Rings, so I think I will withhold judgment until we can watch them together.”

“Well, that’s too bad.”

“Don’t tell you don’t have the DVDs, Mr. Tomlinson.”

Louis feels himself blush a little when Harry calls him that. “I might, but I also have to work on an essay.”

“Don’t we all,” Harry says.

“I only have the extended editions.”

“It’s only five o’clock.”

Louis isn’t going to win this one, he can feel it, so he shrugs and acquiesces, probably against his better interests. 

“I’ll go grab them from my room,” he says, feeling a productive night slip away from him, and yet not really caring. “But just the first one, okay? We can marathon the rest some other time.”

Harry flashes him a thumbs up.

* * *

It’s two o’clock in the morning, and they’re just at the end of Two Towers. Well, Louis is still awake, because he can never get over the magic of Lord of The Rings, but Harry is asleep, snoring softly and resting on Louis’ shoulder, hair tickling Louis’ neck in a way that sends little sparks dancing across his skin. He feels overwhelming tenderness towards Harry, and it’s not – not something that he’s used to, never let himself just be in love, because he didn’t have friends or normal people things during secondary school. His hands are shaking a little bit. He’s not prepared. Not at all.

The credits start to roll, and Louis figures that he should maybe wake Harry up, because he’ll probably want to sleep in his own bed, which is a generally more comfortable thing than having to awkwardly nap on Louis’ shoulder.

“Harry,” Louis whispers, gently nudging him. Harry snorts, shifts a little, but doesn’t move.

Maybe, Louis considers, maybe Harry just wants to stay here for the night. It’s late, he probably doesn’t want to stumble five feet down the hallway back to his own room. Louis secretly hopes that he does.

“Harry,” Louis says, a little louder, “you should probably go back to your own room now. It’s late.”

Again, nothing. Well, he can try to sleep like this. He places his glasses beside him gingerly, hopes that he doesn’t move over too much in the night, and looks over at Harry again.

“Good night,” he whispers to the top of Harry’s head. He hesitates a moment, and then presses a gentle kiss, feather-light, to the top of Harry’s head. Louis had thought, and was clearly mistaken, that it might quell the butterflies in his stomach, but no, clearly not, it’s caused them to multiply instantaneously.

As he tries to drift off to sleep, he only then realizes how screwed he is. 

* * *

 

When he wakes up the next morning, all he can think about is how the sun is just too, too bright. Harry’s sitting on the floor, flipping through Louis’ copy of the sonnets.

“What time is it?” Louis asks, sitting up straight and rubbing his eyes.

“Ten-thirty.”

“I had a lecture at ten!”

Harry shrugs. “You can miss one, Lou, I don’t think it will kill you.”

Harry is probably right.

“How’d you sleep?” Louis asks.

“Alright,” Harry replies, putting the book back on Louis’ desk. “We’re going to have to watch that second movie again, though, because I missed most of it.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, picking up his glasses and putting them on. “You were passed out about a third of the way through. It was a bad idea to try and watch them both.”

“There is only one way to figure out whether or not things are a bad idea, and that is to try them,” Harry says, smirking. “Listen, I just wanted to make sure that you’re up and alright, but I’m meeting a friend at eleven, so I’m going to head out.”

“See you later?” Louis says, the smallest note of hope in his voice.

“For sure,” Harry says, standing up. “I’ll text you.”

“Cool,” Louis says. “Have a good day.”

Harry waves at him quickly, and ducks out the door. 

* * *

They hang out, and Louis doesn’t mean to make it all encompassing or super clingy, but he seems to spend more of his evenings and free time with Harry than not. He loves it, and they finish Lord of the Rings one lazy Sunday, and then start with the old Doctor Who, which is laughably bad yet amazing at the same time.

Louis doesn’t feel like he can tell Harry about how he’s feeling, how _nice_ it is for the two of them to spend all this time together, or how mind-blowingly empty he feels when Harry isn’t around any more. This means that Zayn gets a goddamn earful after every time that Louis and Harry hang out, but Zayn is Louis’ best source of advice on what to do in this situation, not that Louis takes it ninety percent of the time, namely because it would involve doing something that could imperil his and Harry’s nascent friendship. Louis is starting to like Blondie, and he even let Harry borrow his LOTR soundtrack CDs, which he hasn’t let anyone do in its twelve-year history.

Louis is not following Harry around, or at least, he isn’t meaning to, but he happens to catch him just out of the corner of his eye when he’s leaving the Bod, and there aren’t that many people in Oxford who wear black trenchcoats around, which makes it all the more striking that there Harry is – with a girl. Louis recognizes her, one of the US exchange students at the college, and there the two of them are, walking along and laughing, and Louis could literally throw up. He follows them along, through the city center, away from St. John’s, which is dumb because it’s raining and he’s going to get soaked on the way back, until they both disappear into a coffee shop, and by that point Louis just wants to break something.

He doesn’t stop at his room when he gets back to the college, just storms through the hallway and pounds on Zayn’s door until he opens it.

“Tommo, geez, I was taking a fucking nap,” Zayn says, looking irritated. Louis completely ignores him, barges in, and sits in his desk chair.

“I saw Harry with a girl,” Louis says.

Zayn sits down on his bed. “And?”

“Does this mean he doesn’t like me back?”

“Dude,” Zayn says, “you are not handling this particularly well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Louis,” Zayn says, a note of exasperation, “he wouldn’t hang out with you so much if he didn’t fucking like you back, but of course, you’ll never find out because you can’t seem to work up the courage to actually take that next step! You need to do something!”

“But what if he’s straight?”

“Didn’t he used to have a crush on the cartoon character from Atlantis.”

“Yeah.”

Zayn folds his arms against his chest. “He isn’t straight. It is also possible to like both girls and guys.”

Louis sighs. “I’ve messed this up.”

“As long as he didn’t notice you following him around, I think you’re good,” Zayn says. “But this does mean that you should probably let him know how you’re feeling, Lou. It’s for the best.”

* * *

Louis still doesn’t take Zayn’s advice, because he’s an idiot. He really is. There is no other way to put this. He throws himself into his last sets of tutorial essays, and does not hang out with Harry at all. This makes things innumerably worse, and Harry looks sad too, but Louis can’t handle his feelings, and this is a logical consequence, he supposes.

The college hosts an end of term party at the beginning of December, about a week before they all leave for Christmas, and there’s free mulled wine, so Louis goes with Zayn, his gown pulled over a his nicest dress shirt and jeans, and tries to ignore Harry as best he can. He does a terrible job, and it takes twenty minutes of Louis trying to glance inconspicuously and Harry’s eyes boring into the back of Louis’ head before Harry finally comes over, taps Louis on the shoulder politely, and asks, “Can we talk outside for a minute?”

“Sure,” Louis says, and nods in Zayn’s direction, who then flashes him a quick thumbs up.

Outside ends up being a terrible place to talk, because it’s the beginning of December so it’s pouring down rain and it’s cold, but they huddle just outside the door,  the din of the party still audible.

“So,” Harry says, “do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Louis says, too quickly not to be suspicious.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Harry says. “We had a good thing going, and I was having a great time hanging out with you, and then all of a sudden, you go quiet.”

“I was busy with work.”

“Bullshit,” Harry says, and Louis has never heard his voice be so sharp before. It sends a jolt of adrenaline down his spine, makes him stand up a little straighter. “Everyone is busy with work, and you were managing just fucking fine before.”

Louis looks up at Harry, not really sure what to say.

“So do you want to tell me what’s really going on?”

“I was – I was worried that I was getting in the way of you and your girlfriend,” Louis replies, voice weak and tremulous.  
“What?”

“The blonde girl,” Louis says.

“Taylor?” Harry says, anger giving way to confusion. “You thought I was going out with Taylor?”

“You guys sit together at dinner, and go out for coffee, and – I’m so sorry.” Louis realizes he just keeps digging himself into a bigger and bigger hole here, so he decides to stop talking.

“Louis,” Harry says, almost sighing, “I am friends with Taylor, but we aren’t going out, I promise.”

“Really?” Louis says.

Harry nods. “I’m kind of crushing on a different one of my friends, I think.”

“Oh,” Louis says. This is not an entirely pleasing answer, until he picks up on the way that Harry’s looking at him. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.” Harry says, nodding at Louis and giving him a look that's - it's probably significant, but Louis chooses to not read anything into it.

“Me?” Louis says. No, this can’t be true, for all of his wishing and waiting, it’s not.

Harry nods.

“But – but – you could have anyone, Harry,” Louis says, heart seizing up with joy and terror.

“And I would like you. Out of all the anyones.”

This is, paradoxically, the moment that Louis has both hoped for and feared the most, except he sort of thought that it might take place inside somewhere a little warmer.

Louis instinctively moves closer to Harry, who drapes his arms over Louis’ shoulders, and oh, look at that, they’re leaning in, and his time is now, Louis is finally going to do the courageous thing and –

At the last second, he chickens out and kisses Harry on the nose. Then, in a haze of adrenaline and insanity, he bolts and dashes back towards his room, squawking incoherently.

He fumbles with the lock and key, and as soon as he’s in, he slumps down against the door, heart racing. Now, he’s done it, run away from his first real kiss and made a total ass of himself in front of pretty much everyone, and most importantly, Harry.

He huddles up against the door, alone in the quiet dorm, for about ten minutes before there’s a gentle knock.

“Who’s there?” Louis says, not standing up.

“It’s me, Lou,” Harry says quietly. “Will you open the door?”

He stands up slowly, and opens the door to Harry, rain droplets still clinging to his gown and hair.

“I am so sorry,” Louis says, “I am nervous, and weird, and –“

He’s interrupted by Harry’s lips gently folding over his own, his hand on his cheek, and it takes Louis a couple seconds to just relax into it. It’s a bit weird and he’s probably kind of bad at it, but that’s not really relevant because all he wants is the warmth of Harry’s body pressing against him, and how gentle his hand on his cheek is, and honestly, Louis has probably never been so content in his life.

“I meant to do that,” Louis says, when they pull apart, still close, and standing in Louis’ doorway. “I swear.”

“I know,” Harry replies. “I’ve been talking to Zayn a little.”

“I’m really bad at this,” Louis says, “and I’ll do my best not to mess things up, but – you know me. I’ll figure something out. We’ll figure something out.”

“I’m not either, Lou,” Harry says. “We will make this work.”

“Do you want to watch Doctor Who and maybe kiss a little more?” Louis asks, feeling his face flush.

Luckily for him, Harry nods, and they step inside Louis’ room.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](http://gallifreyandglowclouds.tumblr.com/). i don't have a good reason for you to. help me feel less lonely.


End file.
